There have been a number of different pharmaceutical products that have been used and have been variously effective for preventing, or at least tending to prevent, motion sickness, which typically occurs while a person travels in a vehicle such as an airplane, automobile, boat or the like. For example, reference may be made to U.S. Pat. No. 4,070,463, and the book entitled, "Motion Sickness" by J. T. Reason and J. J. Brand, published by Academic Press, 1975.
While drugs have proven to be an effective remedy, they have all suffered from various disadvantages. For example, at least some of the drugs have produced undesirable side effects, such as drowsiness. Such diminishing of mental alertness is not at all tolerable for some applications, such as the use by military personnel of the armed forces, as well as air craft pilots and other vehicle operators. In the case of the armed forces, military personnel must remain acutely aware at all times to function properly, and thus pharmaceutical products have not at all been entirely satisfactory as a remedy to motion sickness.
Another disadvantage of the use of drugs in attempting to prevent motion sickness, is the fact that the drugs must be taken a predetermined time prior to traveling. For example, pharmaceutical products typically must be taken one hour prior to traveling. Sometimes persons forget, or are otherwise unable to ingest the drugs at the prescribed time prior to traveling. Thus, the drugs are not always effective at the time of susceptibility to motion sickness.
Yet another disadvantage of the use of drugs in attempting to alleviate motion sickness, is the difficulty encountered when such drugs are administered to children. In this regard, it is usually required to adjust the size of the dosage to the body size of the child. It is oftentimes difficult to make such an adjustment in an accurate manner, and thus there may be the risk of not providing effective dosages, or of an overdosage resulting in unwanted and undesirable side effects.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have an apparatus, and a method of using it, to prevent, or to at least greatly retard the effect of motion sickness, without the need of taking drugs. Such a technique should have little or no side effects, and should be highly effective. The user should remain mentally aware without becoming drowsy.
The technique should be convenient to use, and the apparatus should be relatively inexpensive to manufacture. Unlike the use of drugs, the apparatus should be able to be used repeatedly so that there would be no need to replenish the supply of the product by the user. In this regard, the user would need to make only a single purchase of the apparatus, which could be used repeatedly without being consumed.
The technique should be effective immediately without the need to take precautions prior to traveling as is the case when taking drugs. Also, the technique should be equally effective without side effects for both children and adults, regardless of body size or weight.